


Your Name

by Aluxra



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Púca | Pooka, headcanon fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 13:51:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13525611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aluxra/pseuds/Aluxra
Summary: Jack wants to know what the "E" in E. Aster Bunnymund stands for.((The title is not in reference to the anime of the same name, nor an AU of the anime plot.)) I just suck at titles.





	Your Name

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically just an excuse to write out some headcanons and make it look like a fic.
> 
> Hope you enjoy, anyway C:

‘Hey, Bunny?’

‘Hmm?’

‘What’s your first name?’

Bunny paused, looking up from his sketchbook in confusion, glancing at Jack where he lay sprawled out on the grassy verge next to him. The Warren’s light was bright and warm, pleasant without being stifling, colouring Jack’s pale cheeks and nose a light rosy pink, the warm blush spreading down his neck to his bare shoulders. Bunny would have to move them to the shade of one of the willows sitting on the bank of the colour river a little downstream, soon, before the pink on Jack's smooth alabaster skin deepened to a darker red. At the moment, the gentle slope looking over the river and the vast, sprawling valley of the Warren was comfortable, and convenient for them both to sit and relax: Bunny sketching with his watercolours, while Jack sunbathed half-naked beside him, his head pillowed on his rolled-up hoodie and his hands clasped underneath it.

‘My first name?’ he repeated. ‘You know my first name, ya gumby.’

A grin spread across his face. ‘You’ve moaned it enough times to know it by now.’

Jack rolled his eyes behind closed lids, before blinking them open against the bright light and shifting onto his side. He propped himself up on one elbow, resting his cheek on his hand. He raised his free hand, holding up one finger at a time, ticking off his points one by one. ‘I know your last name, which everyone calls you in some variation or another, and I know your middle name, which far less people call you, but you’ve never mentioned what the “E” stands for. I’ve always been curious, why do you go by your middle name?’

Bunny stared at him, a thoughtful look on his face, before he set his book and brush to the side and leaned back on his elbows, until they were eye level. ‘What makes you think Aster is my middle name?’

Jack studied him in silence, as if suspecting a joke. ‘Because… it’s in the middle?’

‘And ya assume because that’s where humans have a middle name, Pooka followed the same rules?’

‘… Yes?’

Bunny smiled, shaking his head. ‘Can’t apply the same rules across the board, when you’re dealing with two entirely different species.’

‘So, then, how does your name work? Is your name Aster?’

‘My name is Aster, the same way yours is Jack,’ Bunny explained. ‘My surname is Bunnymund, the same way yours is Frost. The “E” … it’s basically a second surname, indicating the family you belonged to.’

‘Why do you have two family names?’ Jack sounded intrigued now, his eyes fixated on Bunnymund. He rolled onto his stomach and propped his chin on his hands, his elbows digging into the soft earth under them. He kicked his feet up in the air idly behind him, swinging them back and forth in lazy arcs.

Bunny tilted his head back, looking up at the domed earth above him head, cocooning them in the protective space of the Warren. It had been a long time since he had last spoken of the Pooka - he hadn’t realised how long - and he had never spoken about family names, the memories too painful to think about. Jack’s curiosity made it easier now, and he found the words didn’t weigh as heavy as they did before.

‘Pooka had a big belief in unity and connection, a kind of togetherness. Even while we are individuals, we were still a part of a family unit – by blood or by mating – and we are also part of a bigger family, or just simply, the “big family”. The “E” represents my big family name.’

‘Like a clan? Or a nation? How does it work? Or is it a super-secret culture thing?’

‘Yes and no,’ Bunny replied, going with the easiest answer to Jack’s sudden rapid-fire questions. ‘Your big family name was dictated by where you were born – your country, I suppose, if you want to go by human terms; but Pooka didn’t have countries per se. That whole idea of one in many and many in one: doesn’t make much sense in cutting yourselves off and keeping apart from one another with lines and boundaries that don’t physically exist.’

‘So, where do the big family names come from?’

Bunnymund shrugged. ‘The Pooka had a name for everything, and everywhere: we had our cities, and our monuments, we had fixed points in the terrain, and natural wonders that had lasted since before our history began.’

‘So, everyone born around one of those named places had that big family name?’

‘Kind of; it’s like, for example, if you were born in, say, _Nordh Raamra_ , your big family name would be "Norra".’

‘So, why put the big family name at the beginning of your name instead of at the end, like your surname?’

Bunny smiled, tilting his head to look at Jack. ‘Because, no matter who you are or where you were from, you had a family at your side.’

Jack smiled back, his gaze soft.

‘Family was so important to the Pooka,’ Bunny continued, an edge of sorrow creeping into his voice. He turned away and cleared his throat, before he settled back and continued. ‘Family came before the individual, and family came after the individual too.’

‘So, what big family do you belong to? Where were you born?’

Bunny chuffed under his breath. ‘My name doesn’t come from where I was born.’

Jack frowned, stilling his kicking legs and folding his arms under his chest. ‘But you said –’

‘I did, but there is one exception to the rule, and that was for those who joined the Pookan Brotherhood,’ Bunny explained, his eyes drifting to the smooth, earthen ceiling above their heads. In the vines and roots and twisting branches reaching up high above their heads, he could almost recall some of their faces. ‘The Brotherhood… we were the warriors, the protectors – the guardians – of all Pooka, and those who sought the light, those who strove for knowledge and wisdom, and truth, and justice. We were scientists and scholars and historians and soldiers, and we served the Pooka – all the Pooka. The biggest big family of them all.’

He nodded, as if reassuring himself he remembered correctly. ‘When we were sworn in, we traded our big family name for a bigger one, because it didn’t matter what small pocket of the world you came from, or what form you had, you now were family to all Pooka.’

Jack let out a low whistle. ‘Sounds like a big responsibility.’

‘It was. Only the best of the best were considered Brothers – and Sisters, of course – and only a Pooka could be one of the Brotherhood.’

‘What? No exceptions?’ Jack asked with a grin.

Bunnymund stilled, his smile fading as his gaze became dull, his eyes pinching at the corners. He stared at the ceiling without really seeing it, and when he spoke again, his voice was quiet, distant. ‘There were a few scattered legends and folktales throughout history - I could count on one hand and have fingers left over - of outsiders being initiated into the Brotherhood as honorary members. There was only ever one exception I knew that was true, because I was there when it happened.’

‘Honorary members never take the name – they know it, but they aren’t allowed to take it – but we still called him Brother, with the way he fought for the light, for justice, for freedom, and the safety of those who stood against the rising dark.’

‘He sounds like one hell of a soldier,’ Jack mused.

‘A General,’ Bunny corrected in a quiet whisper, closing his eyes and letting his vision go dark against the blinding light of the Warren around him. ‘A Golden General.’

A hand stroked through his fur lightly, closing around his arm and tugging him out of his mind and back into the Warren, bathed in a wash of white-gold light. He turned his gaze to Jack, his pale face blurred out of focus, and Bunny felt tears slip out the corner of his eyes. Looking away, he thumbed them from his eyes and scrubbed his hand down his face, returning his now clear eyes to Jack, who watched with worried eyes under a furrowed brow.

Bunnymund offered him the best reassuring smile he could muster, and pushed himself to sit upright. ‘Come on, Frostbite, we need to move you to the shade before you burn.’

Jack blinked, looking down at his shoulders and chest as if only just realising how pink his skin had become, and pushed himself to his feet. He kicked up his staff, which had lay beside him the whole time, and picked up his hoodie from the grass, shaking it out to lose the odd blade or two that clung to it. He didn’t put it on though, instead hitching it over one shoulder in one hand, keeping a hold of his staff in the other.

‘You know I can just ice myself over to cool myself down, right?’ he asked, demonstrating as a thin layer of frost spread up his arm and across his body, melting away just as quickly in the heat of the Warren.

‘Cooling the skin won’t help it if it’s already damaged,’ Bunny replied, gathering his supplies under one arm and reaching out to feel Jack’s skin with the other. He cupped his hand around the side of Jack’s neck first, travelling to his shoulder and then around to his back, feeling the warmth of the skin, testing to see if he had caught himself in time to move them to the shade.

Jack stood and allowed Bunny to touch him, his eyes drifting shut as he focused on the sensation of Bunny’s hand on his skin. His lips parted around a breath when Bunny ran his hand down the full length of Jack’s bare back, the barely-there scrape of claws making him shiver even though he wasn’t cold. He opened his eyes when the hand dropped away, titling his head back to meet Bunny’s vivid green gaze.

He smiled, stepping in closer and rising up on his tiptoes to press a kiss against Bunny’s mouth.

Bunny’s ears twitched, and he cocked his head to the side. ‘What was that for?’

Jack shrugged. ‘For teaching me about your name; for sharing a part of yourself with me.’

He stepped in closer, until Bunny had to lift his arm and wrap it around his shoulders. Jack responded by swapping his staff over to the same hand holding the hoodie, and wrapping his arm around Bunny’s narrow waist, pulling him towards the line of willow trees along the bank of the colour river. ‘Now come on, or else you’ll have to put me in a bath of milk and aloe later.’

They fell into step as they wandered down the grassy slope; Jack rested his head on Bunny’s shoulder, his eyes half closed and his mind wandering as they strolled along the side of the river. Bunny turned his head and rested his chin against the crown of Jack’s head, his breath ruffling the spiked locks of Jack’s hair. They walked in silence, listening to the run of the river and the rustles of the trees in the wind, until Bunny bent his head down till his mouth brushed against the curve of Jack’s ear, and he whispered three simple syllables in Jack’s ear.

Jack’s eyes widened, straightening with a jolt and looking up at Bunny with a mix of wonder and shock. ‘Isn’t it supposed to be a secret? Aren’t outsiders not allowed to know your name?’

‘It’s not much of a secret, if I’m the only one left to tell it, and the name is kept a secret from outsiders, yes,’ Bunny agreed. ‘But not from our mates.’

Jack’s heart flipped in his chest, his face turning pink for the second time that afternoon as he tried to stop the giddy smile spreading across his face, and failing. He could feel Bunny smiling, and he buried his burning face in the thick ruff of Bunny’s chest. Bunny chuckled as he flustered, and tucked Jack’s head under his chin, ruffling his hair fondly as the name echoed through Jack’s head in a repetitive mantra, before he locked the secret of it safely in his heart, protected in his keep forever.


End file.
